Colfax school board report: Native American mascot resolution fails at WASB convention
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — Colfax school board member Ken Neuburg says he is perplexed about the failure of a resolution at the Wisconsin Association of School Boards convention in January regarding school districts retiring Native American mascots.
Neuburg, who spoke about the WASB resolutions at the Colfax Board of Education’s February 24 meeting, was the assembly delegate at the WASB convention.
“I don’t know why we are still talking about this,” Neuburg said.
The resolution supported legislation requiring school districts to retire Native American mascots. The legislation would not require school districts to retire images, statues or other likenesses of historical individuals after whom a school or community is named.
The resolution was the only one out of 17 resolutions to fail, and failed on a vote of 109 “yes” to 202 “no,” he said.
Not only was Neuburg surprised by the vote on the resolution, he also was surprised by the amount of debate generated by the resolution.
And the people who were debating the resolution “were not Native American. It was the only one that was resoundingly turned down,” he said.
Neuburg said he was so perplexed by the vote that he looked for other sessions and presentations at the convention related to Native American studies.
He ended up attending a session by David O’Connor — “American Indian Studies: Implementing Wisconsin Act 31.”
Neuburg said he would like to see O’Connor, who is employed by the state Department of Public Instruction and Wisconsin First Nations, come to the Colfax school district to speak.
“I came away from David’s presentation thinking how invigorating it would be if we could bring him to our school district for a presentation to our students, teachers, administrators, staff and community,” he said.
Neuburg provided a list of websites for further information: www.dpi.wi.gov/amind (American Indian Studies Program at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction); www.wisconsinfirstnations.org (American Indian Studies in Wisconsin at the Wisconsin First Nations Education website); www.shop.wisconsinhistory.org/native-people-of-wisdom-revised-and-expanded-edition-3 (Wisconsin Historical Society book by Patty Loew); and www.theways.org (stories on culture and language from native communities around the Central Great Lakes).
Additional resolutions
Two other resolutions were brought to the floor of the delegate assembly for reconsideration and possible review that were turned down earlier by the Policy and Resolutions Committee, Neuburg said.
One resolution was about the one-cent sales tax for school infrastructure and technology, which failed on a vote of 119 “yes” to 172 “no.”
The other resolution was about establishing a Hmong curriculum in Wisconsin, which failed on a vote of 91 “yes” to 202 “no.”
The resolutions needed a two-thirds pass rate for consideration to open up debate, Neuburg said.
Barron
Colfax school board member Jodi Kiekhafer said she had attended a presentation by the Barron school district about how the school district had handled the Jayme Closs tragedy.
The presentation was difficult to identify because the title did not refer to Jayme Closs, Kiekhafer said.
If the presentation had included the girl’s name, there would have been so many people attending there would not have been room to accommodate them all, she said.
Jayme Closs was a student in the Barron school district who was abducted in October of 2018 and held for 88 days after her abductor, Jake Patterson, had murdered both of her parents.
The school district had conducted drills for situations like that the summer before and had been able to keep a positive attitude in a negative situation, Kiekhafer said.
As it turned out, the school board president was the SWAT team commander in Barron, and his wife had been Closs’s homeroom teacher, she said.
Sex trafficking
School board member Ken Bjork attended a presentation by social services personnel in the Appleton area on sex trafficking.
The upshot is, “we can’t say it won’t happen here,” Bjork said.
Appleton is mostly in Outagamie County with part of it in Calumet and Winnebago County.
Vaping
Kiekhafer also attended a session on e-cigarettes/vaping.
Vaping is recommended to be part of the school district’s sports policy, she said.
The federal Food and Drug Administration only states that vaping cartridges must say they contain nicotine, Kiekhafer noted.
The cartridges are made to look good and taste good and to be especially attractive to young people, she said.
If there are many cellular telephone chargers missing, school personnel should be suspicious that they are being used to charge vaping units, Kiekhafer said.
One vaping cartridge contains the same amount of nicotine as one to two packs of cigarettes, said William C. Yingst Jr., school district administrator.
Students who vape go through one to two vials per day, which would be the equivalent of two to four packs of cigarettes, said John Dachel, Colfax High School principal.
Dachel said he had attended a conference on vaping several weeks ago.
Because of the other substances in the vaping cartridges, medical personnel are now starting to see 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds who need lung transplants, he said.
Vaping was at first advertised as a “safe” alternative to smoking, Yingst noted.
Coaches
The Colfax Board of Education has approved the following coaches and assistants for spring sports:
• Baseball — Kirk Secraw (head coach); Michael Hodel (assistant).
• Softball — John Dickinsen (head coach); Rick Geissler (assistant).
• Boys’ golf — Michael Dombrowski (head coach).
• High school track — Ryan Krall (head coach); Chuck Brown (assistant); Ally Heidorn (assistant); Kathleen Thorn (assistant); Isaac Lee (assistant); Tina Rothbauer (assistant); Brittany DeMoe (part-time assistant).
• Middle school track — Megan Pawlak (head coach); Kara Buchner (head coach).
Other business
In other business, the Colfax Board of Education:
• Learned that the summer swimming program will be from June 8 to June 19 at the Elk Mound High School swimming pool.
• Learned that the summer school dates will be June 22 to July 2 at Colfax Elementary.
• Learned that the Colfax school district has been awarded a $9,000 Technology for Educational Achievement grant (TEACH).
• Approved a new student activity account under the name of “manufacturing.” The technology education and business education departments at Colfax High School have started a manufacturing program, which was originally called Colfax Manufacturing, Yingst said. The students decided to change the name to The Viking Ship, he said. Available products have been on display at basketball games, such as signs, steel cutouts, bow hangers and personalized mugs, Yingst noted.
• Learned that the school district’s second Friday in January pupil count was 814.